


Common Threads That Bind

by SE_Soignee (Soignee)



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Gen, daddy issues oh boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 07:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12031359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soignee/pseuds/SE_Soignee
Summary: Kolyat waits for his father to arrive by the Citadel docks, and tries to fit his new life around the sudden reappearance of the man who left him ten years ago.





	1. Third Time's The Charm

THE CITADEL DOCKS, 2185. 

I’ve spent most of the week lost in the memories of my childhood. They're hard to gauge as accurate, even to a drell. Can you rely on yours to truly be as it was? Even if your recall is eidetic, if all you have seen is through a child’s eyes, can your formative memories still be yours as an adult? 

I’ve always thought of them as a separate from me, and made sure the past five years of my life were spent faced forward, not back. Nostalgia would remain at the bottom of the ocean for the fish to feed on, not bright on the horizon.

I am lost in my first memory again while I wait by the station. I am barely two years old and the centre of my world, other than my parents, was a coloured lump of plastic that could talk and flash lights. My father had removed the power cell after a week of noise, but even though it could no longer speak, it was still my favourite.

The adult in me knows the truth of my toy’s silence, of course; as a child, I did not understand, not quite connecting the dots of its sudden death. I was only told that Berad the Snuldak needed an operation, and that Dada would fix him when he got home.

The memory goes like this: the toy is on the floor next to where my mother sleeps. I can see it from the crib in our room- I pull myself up by the bars, angry I’m in bed still. The room is dark apart from my sleep light, and I see just enough to escape. It takes me three attempts to climb over the edge- I do so, and fall over. I’ve always wondered why this never hurt me, looking back, but my aunt said children are mostly made of _ashea_ jelly at this stage of their life, and that I was no exception.

“Gods help me,” my mother says, muffled by the pillow; I can see her frill bands glinting silver, even in the poor light. I scoop the toy to my chest, pleased with my bounty, and creep to the edge of her bed. “He can escape now, happy days.” Her hand falls over the mattress, and I hold onto it. 

It was probably obvious why my mind connected this to waiting for my father. It's not as if he was even in the memory to begin with, but story of my life there, I suppose. I covered up my smile with a cough before a passing stranger thought I was an idiot gurning at ships.

The Normandy had been stationed for fifteen minutes now, though it had arrived earlier than planned. Thankfully I had avoided its Commander, relieving us both of a dull conversation. “Thank you for hitting me and shooting a lamp. Want to hear about my exciting new job as a receptionist? It’s for a volus skycar dealer. I can get you a discount.”

I waited opposite the boarding gates. The doors opened with a hiss, finally letting out more passengers; I did not recognise anyone, though the first pair to walk through noticed me. They were mismatched; a large young krogan and a scarred old human, reeking of of the trouble C-Sec taught me to look out for.

The human turned and I saw a Blue Sun logo stamped on his neck. There we are, then. Seemed even Cerberus hired the usual triggermen.

“I’m hungry,” the krogan said, rumbling even above the noise of the port.

“We’re on the Citadel,” the human said, waiting for the line to move. “If you can’t find something to eat that isn’t Cerberus-fucking-rationed, you’re thicker than I thought.”

The krogan growled a response and my translator blipped to itself. His companion backed down- not because I think he felt threatened, but to lessen the sting of his previous insult.

“I know a good noodle place in the Lower Wards,” said the human, pinching his nose. “But if I don’t get something stronger down me soon, what’s the point of leaving that goddamn tin can in the first place?”

A pair of mismatched eyes noticed me staring. He knew who I was, going by the feral grin he had given me; I avoided his gaze again before something started.

To be frank, everyone that had so far stumbled out of the Normandy’s docking gate had matched _Bailey’s Checklist of People To Watch_ , especially since a heavily marked woman had leapt to join them, whooping loudly. “Move, fuckers! Freedom is that way.”

I have yet to meet a tattooed human who didn’t act like the universe owed them something. “That’s a funny word for liquor,” said the old man. The newcomer made a point to ignore me, but I thought she was fascinating. I hoped I was being subtle in checking out her skin marks; my memory is eidetic, not photographic, and sometimes once is not enough.

“You starting something?” She looked right at me. I really am the world’s worse drell when it comes to blending in. Even my eldery aunt can stand still long enough to be forgotten, and yet here I am lit up like Beshma’s day, for all to point out.

Before I could react, the pair of us were saved by an elbow to her gut. “Fancy a trip, Jacky? I’m thinking whisky and pole dancers. We can take tankboy,” said the older human. He jerked a thumb at the krogan trailing them both.

“No,” replied the krogan.

His companion was relentless. “Could buy him a private booth, though don’t know if he needs it after Tuchanka. Hah, that was one helluvah Bar Mitzvah.” My translator glitched again, and I made a note to ask Bailey for a language update- some kind of pub?

“You buyin’?” she asked him, curling her lip up in a way that showed off her teeth. “You owe me, I let you win at poker last night. ‘Sides, it’s all going to shit soon.”

“Hush, not in front of the children,” he said, and nodded at me.

“I’m listening,” the krogan replied, sullen. “But there’s no noodles. You can shove your dancing up your ass.”

“I met a batarian stripper who did that,” the old man said, laughing at his own joke. “Called it the Skyllian Shimmy.” They had stopped in the small corridor to talk, conveniently beside me. “Maybe we can take Krios’s kid instead, sure he won’t mind.”

By _he_ I wondered if they meant my father, but I was in no mood to find out. “As enticing as that sounds, I have plans,” I replied. “Tell Jaelinda Kolyat says hello if you’re going to the Dark Star; I recommend you avoid the ale.”

I named the waitress I met through work- if you could call mandated community service actual employment, which I did. Jae was there in penance of her shoplifting habit; we scrubbed walls that stunk of interspecies piss together in companionable silence for a month, and on her last day we consoled the act with a bottle of asari mead and my first mind-meld.

“Would you look at that, girlie. Seems the apple fell from the tree and rolled into the goddamn gully. You’re not your old man, fella.” He laughed again, though the krogan remained confused as to what was funny. So was I, really.

I threw a glance back towards the ship, as if somehow my father would appear now we were talking about him. Were they his friends? Colleagues? Did he have those, now? “He’s still coming,” the male human told me. “You tell ‘im Uncle Zaeed will take you drinking later, if he lets you off the leash.”

The three of them walked off with a wave, but the woman looked over her shoulder one last time. I wonder where else she had tattoos? Not that she had much else on to wonder at, but-

A familiar sight of green scales appeared through the glass and I lost the thought. My father adjusted the sleeves of his coat by the door before it opened; he was nervous. Good.

He was not alone this time. An asari in a red suit touched his elbow briefly as she went past; father looked grateful for the contact, nodding his head at something unsaid between them. I scrubbed my mind several times over at what it could be before my imagination got the better of me.

She greeted me before he could, which I found peculiar. Her eyes were stranger than the mismatched human’s; she was no giggling Jaelinda, that’s for sure. “Have we met?” I said, unsure. “I’m Kolyat.”

“I would think a drell would know a person or not,” she replied. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my father watch us. “But I know who you are, young man.” Her gaze was a scale’s edge away from rude before she said anything, and when she filled the silence I felt the words were a test. “It is good to see someone turn away from darkness,” she said. “It it a rare honour.”

That’s me, on the straight and narrow. Did the entire fucking ship know my story? Did my father tell everyone who would listen about his memories? “Uh, thanks,” I said. Not a lot else to say to a stranger, least of all a scary one.

At least I wasn’t surly. See, Bailey? I’m learning. “Goddess guide you, _sere_ ,” she replied. It was a farewell, albeit a graceful one.

I realised, distracted as I was, that she wore a Justicar’s suit. Shit. Every C-sec precinct had a story about one, and none of them ended with mead and a mind meld. “And to you?” I was unsure what the social niceties were to surviving a judgement.

Father’s companions were interesting; as soon as I began to wonder if that made him interesting by proxy, he appeared beside me, a shadow from nowhere. “Kolyat. Apologies for not introducing you to my …squadmate,” he said. “But a Justicar is a literal law unto themselves, and it is rude to interrupt a judgement.”

Gods thrice dammit he needed a fucking bell. “Good to know I passed,” I replied, annoyed I was flustered. “Judgement, really? Would you have done anything if I didn’t?”

He nodded once. “Not that she would, of course. Our oaths are with the Commander- we are her weapons.”

Right, of course. How stupid of me not to know. “You have odd companions.”

“They say the same about me. I’m not very… social.” He cleared his throat again before speaking. “Thank you for meeting me here.”

“I said I would.”

Now that he was standing beside me, he was just… here. Was he always this unassuming? I remembered him as this tall, towering presence in my life, not as this. I even had a few centimetres on him, and could see that my shoulders were wider than his. Either the gym program had bulked me out, or he was always this size.

“Perhaps we could see your neighbourhood?” he asked, hands behind his back. “I am …unfamiliar with your Zakera Ward. I would like to see it as you do, if you wouldn’t mind showing me.”

I shrugged. Easy enough, and I was oddly relieved at the suggestion. Haron told me once that most Citadel residents had their own kingdom, one where they felt the most comfortable in their plates -or scales, in my case. Zakera was mine as soon as I got here; I knew the ‘beat’ of it, whatever that was. Officers make a great deal of noise about their beats, anyway.

“We can go to the park,” I said, waiting for him to clear immigration. He was using a fake name to pass through, of course he would. “No food, though.”

It was a start. Our first attempt at a reconciliation -and I’m not counting the time I was slapped by his commanding officer- was an expensive meal in the Presidium. Neither of us had the nerve to enjoy it; I ran into a waitress in my haste to leave, the empty plates she carried dumped to the floor.

My dramatic exit was thwarted by the urge to help the poor woman. I couldn’t run away from the mess I left, even if he was a champion of it. My father ended up walking me to the train station before I could escape again, and only when the carriage doors closed on me did I realise I was crying, that his endless fucking sea of apologies that night had got to me again.

That wouldn’t happen today, I’d make sure of it. We walked towards the stairs of the trains, the crowds kept us quiet. We sat next to a frantic turian couple with a fussing baby, and I realised we were face to face; the seats were too close together to avoid the other.

Most of the occupants of our carriage got off at the next stop, a changeover point to the other Wards. I make an effort to only talk about the here and now; Bailey let it slip a week ago that my criminal record had somehow been removed from the Citadel files, all with that infuriatingly smug smile of his. At least I could tell my father some news other than how good I am at removing graffiti.

“Now I’m just Kolyat Krios, failed student,” I told him, watching the family leave for the next station. “And not Kolyat Krios, failed criminal.”

“Truly, a clean start,” he said. I debated passing the time on my omni-tool until our stop, but watched the blurring lines of the Wards instead. “Arashu’s grace comes to us at the strangest of times.” I startled at the words. “ _‘She will carry our burdens when we are unable, and sing our songs when we cannot speak_.’”

“Right,” I replied, ignoring the scripture. “But at least I can apply for jobs that require a record check now. Got that going for me, I guess.” The train doors to Zakera Parkway opened before he could speak again, and I was thankful for the solid interrupt from religion. “The park is not far from here,” I said. “I eat lunch there sometimes.”

He seemed content just to walk beside me. “I find myself untying and retying thoughts now,” he said; we had been silent for too long, it seemed. “Funny how life changes, even within a year. It goes so fast, Kolyat.”

“Does it fucking really?” I tried to let it go, but couldn’t. Was he always this sentimental? It sounded like the start of another ‘don’t waste your life, son’ discussions, framed in Lasharian voodoo.

He paused, breathing in before he could speak. “I did not intend it as a lecture.”

“Oh? Usually one follows.”

I resisted the urge to look at my bunched fists. Bailey said something similar a week ago; apparently I need two old men in my life to lecture me on my self worth, one is barely enough. “I’m not doing nothing.”

“I know you’re not,” he said. “I know it’s not the life you want, but it’s a start. Nothing ever good is easy, Kolyat. Now you have finished your service with C-Sec, you can-”

“I still volunteer through C-Sec,” I said. Oh excellent, this conversation too. I mean, might as well get it over with. “I know you don’t want me with them, but I still, ah, help out.”

His reluctance over my work was a baffling sticking point of my father’s morals. Thane Krios the career assassin, who insisted I remain on that straight and narrow, annoyed I considered a career in law enforcement. “I did not say that exactly,” he said.

“No, but the disapproval remains.”

He had pointed out all the ‘flaws of the system’ as he called them in his emails, and wondered if I could ‘build my future’ with something else. I found myself in the odd position of defending both C-Sec protocol and politics, annoyed that I had to.

“I had assumed you were finished with your community service?” We had stopped by a water fountain full of shrieking children, and he gestured for me to sit by the closest bench.

There was nothing to do but stare at the fake clouds of the Citadel. I shoved my fists back into my pockets, unsure what to do with my hands. “Yeah, but I’m doing things officially now- I sometimes help out with the translation if it’s B’rissa’s day off. I’ve joined C-Sec Community Support too, start next week.”

Nobody liked Community Support in Zakera. Anyone caught wearing the orange uniform were plastic cops at best, thanks to the lack of power they had; you could not make arrests, nor were you issued weapons. All I had to look forward to was a hideous uniform that chaffed my scales and a broken comm system to call in actual C-sec.

I would also be a walking target for abuse, including that from actual officers of the law: ‘ooh it’s a plastic, what you going to do? Offer them a cup of tea? Don’t worry, the real cops are here.’

My perceptive father picked up on this, of course. “You don’t seem happy about this,” he said.

“It’s a start, like you keep saying it is. I won’t have to do it for long.” He looked at a space on the floor, unsure what to say next. “I do something with your _drala’fa_ too,” I said, changing the subject. “Bailey said it would be good for me.”

“They are not mine to own,” he said. “They are theirs, as much as they can be.”

Hah, try telling a duct rat that; go on, I dare you. “All I do is sit around a moulding prefab and make sure they don’t stab each other or steal anything. C-sec can’t offer them much, I don’t know why I’m there. I get paid nothing, but at least it’s only two afternoons a week.”

I had a real job on top of all the C-Sec stuff too. I hated it, but who doesn’t in customer service? I worked 30.6 hours a week for a skycar dealership, just enough to keep me in credits; answering calls and directing customers to greasy salesmen was not my idea of a career, but at least it kept me out of rent arrears. I still refused the money offered by him, obviously.

“You give them your time,” he said. “That is more than most.”

Bailey told me it would look good on my application; it was the only reason I was there. “It’s not so great,” I said. “Sometimes you can speak to them when they feel like it.”

Father shifted in his seat, turning to face me. I can see he’s desperate to tell me he’s proud; I hope he spares us both from the threat. “It sounds an admirable thing to do,” he said. “Is it fulfilling work?”

Being called several shades of prick by children half my age was not my idea of fulfilment. “I was kicked in the shins by a tiny turian that barely reached my stomach- caught her taking a knife to the couch, not sure why she was doing it,” I said. “Did you know we evolved from lizards? Smart of her to point out.”

To be fair on the little shits, it’s not as if they had much else to do in the room; all they had was a Shattered Eezo console older than me to play with. The ancient pair of terminals were sanctioned only for educational programs and job applications, and the handful of duct rats that bothered to use the place were the ones that were trying, according to C-Sec. Not many do.

“Their situation is not yours,” my father said, as forgiving as Bailey. “Most drala’fa have only the charity of others to depend on- it’s a hard life to survive, Kolyat.” His mouth moves along on its own volition, sinking into a memory. I catch him mumbling ‘blackened feet’ and try not to roll my eyes; Mouse, probably. There’s another who refused to talk to me now- I’m apparently tainted now.

“Yeah, well. Until the project gets more funding, there’s not much we can do but keep them from stabbing each other.”

The pair of us sit in silence again, and I knew my patience was wearing thin. “How are your lessons?” Father asked. Another thing he is proud of, I can tell. No clue why, considering I flunked school the first time to run away; evening classes for failed adults aren’t exactly something to shout about.

“Dull. Exams are in a month, I’m going to be okay. I need them for C-sec stuff, anyway.”

My father cleared his throat before speaking again, and I could see him steel himself for something. Was I really that hard to talk to? “We go through the relay by then,” he tells me, eyes on mine. “I am unsure if- I don’t know if I will get to see you again before we go. There are… matters to attend to, still.”

Father was telling me he might die. Again. “You’ve been vague in your emails.”

“For a reason. I am hopeful it will not be as I first thought. _Sih_ -Shepard remains optimistic, and so must I.”

No one has ever come back from the Omega 4 relay, not even drones. He watched me from the corner of his eye this time, and I don’t know what he wants me to tell him- as if whatever I say could fix it, anyway. “Don’t die, then.”

He was amused enough to relax now. “Elegant solution,” he said. “I’ll tell the Commander.”

“Happy to help,” I replied. We watched in silence as an asari and her turian bondmate chased their daughter in the jets of the fountain, not knowing what to say to the other; I had run out of news, and wanted nothing more now but to leave him.

“Today is Athame’s Day of Remembrance for the asari,” he said. He was lost in his thoughts again. “I wonder what it must be like, to live that long. I think our kind would go mad if we did- our minds are not built to endure centuries.”

No one could beat a Krios in self-loathing. “Becoming a Siarist? Everything has a place with the universe, or something.”

He smiled. “There is an overlap in theology in all species. We all become dust, in the end.”

I checked the calender on my omni-tool. I knew many aliens had remembrance days, some more complex than others. For drell it is simpler; we honoured our dead by existing. As soon as the body is placed into the water, our memories of them are trapped into the graveyards of our own.

“Ah, no wonder Haron was complaining, it’s a holiday day. He was covering for someone, had to work double.”

“I think our people need something similar,” he said. “It is good to share memories.” His hands are clenched on his knees, and it seemed we were both unsure at what he meant. “Perhaps there even was such a day once, lost in the deserts- not all religions made it over.”

“I read the stories. Some of it I’m glad our people forgot.”

Conversations about Rakhana were never fun. “An old priest told me there was once a monastical pact centred on remembering repetition, that each day had to be the same. If the memories were altered, the monk had to pay penance for the change by singing the tips of their scales.”

I am not the most religious of Laharians; I can name our Gods, even regurgitate some of the scripture if you pushed. If you ask me if I believe any of it, that’s another story. My mother never did, despite her marriage to him. “There’s always the Day of the Sea,” I said, humouring the old man. “No self mutilation there, unless you count Aunt Mura’s cooking.”

“The Compact.” He always defended it; so did Mother in her own way, working as she did in their research labs. “That is a collective remembrance, not a personal one.”

“We’ve missed it by a few months.” You were meant to give thanks, and to remember those that were left behind. We, the lucky ones who were moved, and not left to rot on a graveyard world.

“There are still people on Rakhana,” he said. “I used to find it unbearable to hear, but now I take comfort in their survival. The last report listed three thousand of us, alive still.”

“Technically they’re dead,” I replied. “According to the Council.” There was a vid series a few years ago that showed long range camera feeds of a thriving population, despite the radiation poisoning; our people had gone backwards in technology, fighting tooth and scale over water.

Shit, what a cheerful subject this was. Death and dying, the baseline for all our conversations. “We got the afternoon to ourselves,” I said, cutting him off from more. “There’s a bar from here, one of my favourites. Don’t give me that look, it’s legal for me to drink. They serve tea, I’m sure.”

We had done the job talk, the C-sec talk, and ruminated on death; all that was left was the ghost of Mother to deal with.

“We still have time,” he said.

“Yes, Father. I know.”

 


	2. Framboise for Arashu

ZAKERA WARD

We went to my regular bar, even though I wanted to separate my father from it. This was my life, not his.

“Hey kid,” Maera said as we walked in. I liked her, she was my favourite bartender- a retired C-sec officer living the dream with her own bar; she had hundreds of stories up her sleeve, and would give me a shot of liquor no one wanted when she felt like it.

“Maera,” I replied. “I’ll have, uh…” I usually ordered beer or shots. They weren’t exactly ‘drinking with Father’ choices, however. “A wine. House is okay.”

“Wine?” Her eyes flicked between my Father and me. “Alright.”

Father stood next to me, arms behind his back. He nodded at my choice and ordered a tea; Maera was discreet enough to leave us alone when we left her for a corner table, though I could see she was curious. Maybe the precinct gossip had reached her to explain who he was, but I doubted it.

She winked at me and went back to her bar. Father raised a brow. “You are known here?” he asked.

“Enough to be a regular, I suppose.” Not that I was bad at it before, but I learnt more about alien interaction and social boundaries propping up the bar of the Blue Line than I did in any of my xeno-sociology classes. I didn’t exactly want a lecture from him about drinking, however.

“This reminds me of a similar time I had years ago,” he told me. Somehow I did not believe my father to be the bar dwelling sort- outside of work, anyhow. “Two drell alone in a bar. A fellow traveller, stranded in Omega. We shared a memory each, and then I left him. It’s something our kind do, outside of Kahje; to no longer feel the stranger in a strange land, if only for a moment.”

 _Didn’t kill that one, then,_ was what I wanted to ask. I covered it up with a drink of wine, and regretted my choice. It was absolutely disgusting, but I wanted a drink, and supposed I should finish it. “I assume you want to share memories too?”

He placed a napkin carefully under his cup before he spoke. “It is presumptuous of me to ask,” and I knew what he was going to say, “but of course I would. I’d like to hear about you and your mother. I have missed so much.”

It was his fucking choice to miss them in the first place. “Should’ve known.” I mean, what else is there to really talk about, between us? That one golden thread, binding us both.

He must’ve seen something on my face, and holds out his hands in apology. “I am-”

I cut him off before he could speak again. “It's fine,” I said, lying through my teeth. “But you don’t get everything. You get one memory today. That’s it.”

Aliens always assumed our memories are like a database, especially when they learn what the word eidetic means for the first time. If only it were that simple; our thoughts are not as organised as a library. While I can relive an unwanted moment with clarity, sometimes it’s harder to recall a specific thought by will alone, especially if it’s wrapped in trauma. A drell understands this, and my father waits for me to speak with a patience only our kind can give.

For something as visceral as my mother, well. I don’t need to drudge through the sediment much; it would be easy to find one that would hurt him, if I wanted to.

_-Uncle Kenat has been crying. He reaches for me from under the porch, my safe place. Mam told me to run and hide, and not to come out until she would get me again. But uncle found me; he has a hand on my ankle and is trying to tug me out. “Kolyat, I need you move,” he tells me. “You can come out, now-_

(Not that one. Not yet.)

A rumble of thunder pricked my thoughts. Ah, that. That will do. I take a sip of my bitter drink, and let the memory wash over me.

“It’s raining so much I cannot go outside,” I said, finally telling him the right memory. “Mother tells me she has to make a call, and that I must be quiet. This annoys me as I cannot watch my vids, and instead she gives me a datapad. It’s set to colouring mode, and I play with it while Mother is talking. I am annoyed my fingers cannot accurately draw the sun, and colour it blue in annoyance.”

“You always did like to colour,” he said, eyes on the table, solemn even at the sharing of a childish memory. “The walls were a favourite.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Once, I did that once. “Mam is trying to be polite. ‘No, wait,’ she says. I do not know who she is talking to. It must be important if I am not allowed to hear it, but I’m getting hungry. ‘I would like some fafel juice,’ I ask her, and I make sure I’m polite, like Aunt Beska insists on. ‘Please and thank you. And a biscuit.’”

Father smiled; I caught a glimpse of it before he could hide it away again, pricking the scales of his mouth into a crease. “You weren’t allowed them,” he said. “If you had your way, it would’ve been biscuits and juice for every meal.”

If it’s one thing that I always felt my mother had tortured me with -well, besides the memories of her death- was her reluctance to feed me sugar. “I was the kid in pre-school with the dried tupa berries and flaked smokefish,” I told him, well aware it was an echo of a child’s petulance. “No one wanted to exchange snacks with me.”

The memory of my mother’s important conversation is still in my mind, and I cannot stop it. “She holds a finger out for me to be silent. I shrink back to the couch, and do as I’m told. ‘I understand that the project needs money,’ Mam says. ‘But we’re so close. The genomic printing attempts have been successful, and-’ she stops, and I try to draw her and me on my pad next to the figure I’ve drawn of Dada.”

That I can recall the exact words she said made me blink- how would a toddler know what genomic meant? Is it because my older perception of the word filled in the blanks, or is because the memory is visceral now with my father sat next to me? I tried so very hard to bury my parents with new memories of my life here, but the last few months I’ve done nothing but drown in them both.

“I look up, and Mam is still talking. ‘Yes, yes,’ she says. ‘I do understand but- I do agree, but if you could see the samples I sent and-’ she falls into the chair opposite me- that was Dada’s chair, but he’s working again. His book is on the side, one which I’m not allowed to touch; it’s old and precious, he says, but there’s no pictures in it and it’s boring. The call must’ve ended, but Mam is still sitting, silent. It takes me a moment to realise that she is crying.”

He had his hands over his chin, frowning to place my past into his. “You must’ve been three years old. The pharmaceutical company cancelled funding for her research that year. I was away, and could only express my sympathy through correspondence.”

“You always were away,” I said on reflex, but found myself tired at repeating it. The same conversation since our reconciliation, over and over again. “But not for your, ah, usual reasons.”

He nodded once. “Construction then, for a set of offices. It was easier for me to stay on site. I was gone three weeks.”

“You took me once when they were finished.” I remembered feeling proud of him, amazed he helped make something so tall, unsure why we weren’t allowed inside to see them up close. “They’ve been turned into apartments now,” I said. I’m not sure why I mentioned that. Who cares, really? In the scheme of things. Not as if either of us would return to Kahje any time soon. “There’s more, if you want,” and wondered if I should twist the knife.

“Please,” he said. His tea was ignored. Sympathy tea, Mother always called it. Just there on the side to reassure you, even if you don’t drink it. “I would be honoured.”

I cleared my throat before speaking. “I try to make her feel better, and tell her it will be okay. She laughs, but I’m not sure what is funny. Instead she pulls me to her and hugs me. ‘My little man,’ she says. ‘I have you, of course I’ll be okay. Let’s go get you your biscuits.’ She picks me up with a groan and I protest, I’m too big to be carried, being carried is for babies. But Mother is sad and she likes it, so I let her, just this once. And besides, I’m getting biscuits.”  
  
I push the wine to one side. I should go order something else, but the memory needs to be complete in order to please Arashu, or so the saying goes. “She puts me in my chair and pours me my juice. I ask her why she was sad. ‘I was trying to make sick people better. But I can’t, because a board of directors say it’s a waste of money. Maybe I could ask Dada to find them for me,” she says, smiling at me. Her eyes are wet, and I wonder if she will start crying again. “No, wait. Don’t say I said that. He’s trying to be something else. It’s very important that he’s trying.”

I stop there and nod, hands clasped together. Even though he’s been from his own people for so long, he at least could still read the end of a memory.

He looks at me, on the verge of apologising again; we both know what became of his attempts at normalcy. “Kolyat-”

“It’s fine,” I said, though it’s not. Why do I feel guilty for sharing it? I could’ve stopped halfway. No, he deserves the pain- he left us. He should feel what it’s like.

“It was arrogant of me to assume I could ever separate home -you, and your mother- from my work,” he said, eyes downcast again. “But-” he breathed in. “But thank you for telling me your memory,” he said. “It means a great deal that you have.”

“Did you understand any of her work?” I asked, changing the subject from his. “She tried to explain when I was younger, but I misheard half the things she told me. If I recall them now, it will be through a child’s mouth. I wish I inherited her smarts.” Didn’t get Father’s either, did I? I was a terrible hit man.

He breathed in heavily before speaking. I could hear the hint of his Kepral’s catch in his lungs, a ticking time bomb in his lungs. I wondered if Mother could’ve helped him with his sickness; she worked in hospitals for as long as I knew her. “She worked on curing a neurone disease that effected hanar, a kind of tissue atrophy that targeted their communication and motor issues.”

“I don’t think I would understand it if she could explain it again, even now,” I said. “I remember she loved her work, though.”

“She was smart, your mother,” he replied, nodding at my words. “I protected her from thugs who took issue with her research, but in the end, plain greed killed her project. The money ran out, and no one would fund her work any more.”

I have inherited barely a fingernail’s worth of Irikah Krios’s intellect. All she has given me in life are her scales and her father’s chin, odd how genetics work. My father, nondescript man that he was, never even influenced my appearance, save for the band of dark green scales I stare at each morning when I brush my teeth. Good for an assassin, I suppose, to be so bland.

“This is disgusting,” I say, lifting my wine glass. “I’m going to get another drink.” I needed a break from the memories, in truth. “Are you-”

“I am fine, Kolyat.”

It was a relief to leave, if only for a moment. “Bad date, kid?” The bartender said, wiping down the bar.

“That’s my father.” I felt my face grimace in disgust.

My revulsion was obviously enough for her to laugh. “Ah, one of those. My dad was salarian. Don’t remember him much, but whatever time we had together, we never much understood each other.”

I squinted at her, curious at the lie. “You said your Dad was a krogan.”

She cracked a grin at me. “Hah, did I? You must be mistaken. Definitely a salarian.”

Was she really arguing with a drell? Of course she was. “Right,” I replied. “I’ll make a note.”

“You do that,” she said, then quirked her head to one side, waiting for me to order. I pushed the wine glass her way.

“I’ll get the truth one day,” I said. “But not over this wine.”

She sniffed the glass as I put aside. A finger dipped in my drink and she shrugged at the taste. “Yeah, alright. This is a cop bar, you know? Not many order the fancy stuff. You want a free shot?”

A ridiculous bottle was pulled down from the shelf, and her fingers left marks in the dust. “This is human. Some kind of fruity liqueur, _fram-boy-see_? Or you can have Batarian vodka if you prefer- your liver won’t.”

“I’ll take the fruit,” I said. Before I knew what I was doing, it was knocked back in one. It was actually tasty, and I got myself another.

“I like you, kid,” she said. “You drink the weird shit no one buys.”

My father cleared his throat as I sat back down. “It is my turn to share,” he said. “As Arashu wills it.” His hands were clasped together, as they were on the table. Only my father could pray in a bar after I had necked a shot.

What did I even want to hear from him? The good old days? How he could efficiently snap the neck of several species in great detail? “Tell me about a holiday,” I said, taking the easy way out.

He smiled in relief and looked to the table to recall. “For once, the sun is shining. I have returned from a job, and it is Beshma’s Day,” he said, telling me the memory. “The air is heady with the scent of decaying flowers, and my wife greets me home with a glass of wine. The breeze flutters her skirt as she smiles at me- she is beautiful, and a rare ray of sunlight catches the fish skin of her dress.”

My father always had a cadence to his memories; all those books and stories shaped his words into something I could never replicate. Bailey said I had a cop’s eye for recollection, whatever that meant, and that I would make a judiciary hearing cream themselves if I was ever brought forward as a witness.

“I remember the dress,” I replied. “One of her favourites.”

He is locked in memory, and does not hear my words. “I have missed her, missed this life. She tells me our son has decided today that he will never grow up, though we both know he is growing so fast. I wonder at the man he will be.”

Do you still wonder, I wanted to say. Instead I knocked back my drink, stopping myself halfway before I drank it all again. “Which Beshma’s day?” I asked him, trying to line his memory with mine.

“We follow his laughter, a happy sound. It is a joyous bell, in spite of Irikah’s previous words to me- some classmate of his making his life miserable, no matter now. A flash of blue lighting then, running between the twined fruit overhanging our garden. Never subtle, our son. We could hear his feet from here to the ocean, and we run past the ergah blossoms to find him, to see his arms filled with flowers.”

“I know this,” I said. The words fell off my tongue in my haste to remember. “I wanted to make sure I had more flowers than my cousins. I saw you, and-”

“The flowers are discarded in an instant as he sees us, and Irikah tells him to be gentle, amused at his haste. I have my arms full with my son, who has thrown himself at me. Kolyat is torn between crying and laughing, and overwhelmed at the sight of me, buries his head into my frill.”

I was so pleased to see him. Father was my universe when I was a child; the memory was a good one, but it’s not as if the asshole stuck around to make more, tainting the handful I have with him from his absence.

“I fell asleep at the table after,” I said, aware of the anger caught in my throat. It was in your arms, safe and warm. My mind was filled with swaying lamplight, laughter of my family sharing an evening meal.

“I don’t think I can carry you to your bed quite as easily,” he said, gesturing to my drink. “Though if you continue with those, perhaps I might have to.”

“Two shots of fruit liquor is not going to make me paralytic. And home is only an elevator ride away.”

There was a quiet unsaid of no more memories between us. I refused to look at him; it appears that neither of us could take any more tugging of that common thread, no matter how desperate we were to hear more.

“What is your new apartment like?” he asked, changing the subject. I had vaguely tidied the place this morning assuming he would visit.

“I was lucky to get it,” I said. There’s a saying in the Citadel; everyone is looking for either a relationship, an apartment or a job; two out of three isn’t bad, thanks to my C-Sec connections.

“It’s in a nice part of Zakera,” he replied. “If you need help with the rent I can-”

“No.” Never in a million light years. “It’s in my budget- easy commute to work, too.” I realised I was grinding my teeth again; I hate cleaning cars. My life in the past year seems to be centred around buckets and cleaning fluids.

He finally gets around to drinking his cold tea, and grimaced at the taste. “I read that you are looking for a roommate? You seemed …unhappy about this.”

Only the rich could afford their own place in Zakera. “Have one, a turian fresh out of basic. One of the new CSI trainees, he’s okay,” I said, not quite knowing what to say about Erimus. “Quiet, but friendly enough. We only see each other in the morning, anyway.”

“What else do you do with C-Sec?” His brow was creased in a frown, puzzled that I shared with an officer now. “Apart from the charity you mentioned.”

If he was going to to give me shit about my choice of career again, then this conversation was going to end fast. “Enough to keep me busy,” I replied.

“Have you applied to become an officer? I don’t quite understand what they make you do.”

I recounted my activities with all the enthusiasm of a shopping list, hoping he would leave well alone. “I have an exercise regime Sergeant Haron makes me do; then there’s the carrier emergency driving lessons, though learning basic light airvraft controls on top, because why not. I also have extra psych and xeno-sociology classes; the charity stuff I mentioned before, and, ah- weapon training, which I’m only adequate at.” Considering my almost career, the irony is not lost on me.

He sighed. “Kolyat,” he started to say, and I resisted an eye roll; here it comes, the lecture. “We have talked on this.”

No, I thought. You’ve talked, I’ve listened. “It’s just for a basic private carry,” I replied. “Not applying for a bounty hunter’s licence or anything. Calm down.”

There was a beat of silence, and before I could fill it, he spoke again. “I suppose in hindsight, it is good for you to learn, considering how focused you are on this… path,” he said, and it was my turn to raise a brow. That was not the response I expected.

“No shit,” I replied, mumbling into my glass.

“Perhaps I could teach you something.” I almost choked on the last of my liquor; wasn’t expecting that, either. “If you would like to. There are many ways to shoot a gun.”

“Ah, sure,” I said, though regretted it after. An infamous assassin versus a fumbling rookie, what a humiliation that would be.

He must’ve sensed my hesitation. “I imagine C-sec have their regulations, but there are several firing ranges in Zakera.”

As if I could take him back to HQ to play with the rifles, Haron would give birth to live klixen if I did. “They do. Every bullet fired in practise is counted and logged somewhere.”

“They are ways around everything,” he said. Of course he would know.

I decided then I would tell him everything. “When I pass my basic school exams, I can do more of their programs, and finally start training as an officer. It’s what I want to do.”

He breathed in heavily before speaking. This was a subject he was not fond of, but if he thought for one moment he had any influence in any decision I would make in changing it, he was mistaken. “A colleague on board the Normandy, he used to be a detective of the investigation division, based in Tayseri.”

“Vakarian?” I asked. He was there when I was busy getting slapped around by their CO, but I could still remember his keen eye trained on Bailey and his squad. Vakarian had his gun drawn, which looking back I thought was odd for an ex-detective to do. Of course I understood now that his loyalties are firmly with Shepard, not C-sec’s; much like my father’s was.

He nodded once, eyes on the table again. “He tells me that all officers need at least five years minimum experience in a military environment before they are considered.” The unsaid there was that I didn’t have that, I was not Compact; per C-Sec regs, I would have to return to Kahje to follow through with proper training.

Vakarian’s beat was never in Zakera, and all Wards had a different approach to bending jurisdiction. “There are ways around that,” I replied. “Bailey is-” and I sighed. I didn’t want to mention this; I didn’t want my father to know everything, especially the help I was getting. “It’s handy that I’m drell, I’m the first of our kind to show an interest. Sometimes the hanar react better to seeing me than they do another race, and it’s useful to be an outsider even to Council races. I can apply under an extenuated circumstance.”

That I was using my minority status to boost me into C-Sec early was not lost on me, and already a few beat cops chafed at the thought of Bailey’s pet getting an alleged handout. “Will you go straight into uniform?” He asked me. “As I understand it, you will be sent to the Presidium ring to learn.”

“Perhaps,” I said. Most cops hated their first beat, unless you were happy with predictable. “Not sure. I haven’t applied yet,” I said. “The memories haven’t been made, so I cannot tell you.”

He smiled at the idiom; it was nice to use them and not be questioned by aliens. “Ah, well. I am unsure if the Compact has what you are looking for, should you even need it,” he said.

“I don’t,” and at my confidence he narrowed his eyes. It was arrogant, yes, but I did not need the Primacy’s help. “There’s this multi-species Council run organisation- Search and Crisis Response,” I said, explaining myself. “I can become a Peacekeeper. Can get my mandated five with that, if the Executioner bounces back my initial application. Looks interesting, they deal with refugees mainly- find them homes and move them from harm, that sort of thing.”

“I have heard of them,” he said. I purposely left out the dangerous patrols outside of Citadel space and the expected fighting with slavers and pirates, but that went alongside handing out rations and medicine too.

“It’s my second choice,” I replied. “But not a bad one.” I thought about getting another drink- both of us had finished, and even though Maera wouldn’t mind me making them last, it felt rude to sit around without one.

Before I could stand, he spoke again. “Why do you want to do all this?” Father was frowning still. “That you want to do good is admirable, but I cannot understand why it must be through C-Sec.”

The million credit question, the one every psych evaluation and recruiter would be asking me as soon as I applied.

I could have lied to him, but something told me not to. “Because the work is interesting. That’s the selfish answer,” I replied, folding and refolding a napkin on the table. “Every day would be different.”

Something clicked into place for him; he relaxed his shoulders and leaned back into his chair. It was if he understood me a little better, and I was unsure if I wanted him to. “That is no bad thing to achieve,” he said. “But it’s not the life I imagined for my son. I assumed you would follow the footsteps of your aunt- become an artist, or even your mother and-”

What gives him the right to question how I turned out? That I should change because what I am doesn’t match the little boy he had left behind? “Why do you think you get to say that?” I said, angry again. At least I had waited this long until shouting, I was getting better.

His hand is on my arm before I realised I was standing. “I don’t. But it doesn’t stop me from worrying about you, especially now.”

Why was he here, in my favourite bar? The bastard wound me up again. “You don’t have a right to decide,” I said, shaking off his hold. “I am-” and here is where I swallowed my pride, large enough now to feel it stick in my throat. “I’m grateful for the intervention,” I said. “I… deserved it.”

“You were disconnected,” he replied. “Due to my negligence, Kolyat. I needed to make things right. I know that is hard for you to hear, but it is the truth. Your life should not be mine.”

I would not justify his words, not to him. “Knowing what I know now, my end would be in some shit hole in the Terminus scraping for credits. I understand this,” and spoke louder before he could speak again. “But I’m onto a good thing, Father. I like the work. I know it’s not going to safe, or easy. If I wanted safe or easy, I would’ve stayed on Kahje.”

And picked fruit on my uncle’s farm, or worked my way through a psychology degree I’m not sure I wanted. And be ignored by Mieeka, until some other girl took pity on me and married me. I would have children and stare at the stars and wonder what life I could've had instead, so unlike the rest of my kind.

“I did not know the full extent of your wanderlust,” he said. His hand was on mine again. “You were always so energetic, always running and leaping, asking me for stories where I had been, what I had seen. Of course you would be here, in the middle of it all.”

“And I’m grateful,” I said, moving away from his grasp. “Truly. Just… you don’t get to decide how I live my life. From now on. I’m an adult, you know. By law, at least.”

“You will always be my son,” he replied. I was too tired to argue, and changed the subject.

Vakarians, plural, were infamous in C-sec gossip circles, and I couldn’t let him go without an attempt at a bargaining chip. “So, about the Normandy,” I asked. “That Vakarian you mention…”

He looked at me, bemused at the prospect of gossip. “Yes?”

“Heard he’s watching your CO’s six in more ways than one, if anyone believes what Haron says. He’s rooting for them, anyway.”

His brow twitched in amusement at my question. “They are… close,” he told me. “The pair are drawn together from a shared experience as soldiers,” he said. “And not what your colleague assumes.”

“Poor Haron, he’ll be sad,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll lose some credits now, there’s a pool going.”

A genuine rumble of laughter from my father startled me. “I am undecided whether to tell either Vakarian or Shepard of this; I don’t think they will find it as amusing, at least not at first.”

“Yeah? My money’s on Blasto. Got any insider’s tips?” I was given a Look. It was very much the same as the one I received when it was past my bedtime as a child, or if I had asked for another biscuit.

“When I know,” he said, suddenly cryptic, you will be the first I will tell. I can assure you of that.”

My father the gossip? Scandalous. “Yeah? Interesting.”

“I hope so,” he replied, quiet. “And what of you?”

Ah, shit. Walked into that one. “What of me?” I fiddled with my empty shot glass, trying to keep my voice even.

“No, ah, significant other?” It was my turn to return a look. “Keep your secrets,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “But everyone should fall in love, Kolyat. As trite as it sounds.”

That was it, there was the snapping point. “Time to go,” I said, standing up. “I have one hour free, then I’m off to class.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this more as a character study for Kolyat so I could get his voice down for another story, rather than a coherent story for someone to read. I've edited the first two chapters into some order; there are more scenes of these two working out their differences, and if someone enjoys reading them, I can post more.


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